River of the Angry Moon: Seasons on the Bella Coola

Rating:
Summary: Loved it, hated it!
Review: It is so hard not to simultaneously both love and dislike this book. Love, because the natural history is beautifully limned and Hume has gift for apt phrasings that take you right out on the edge of this beautiful river (which, I should say proudly, I once lived beside). Former local doctor and naturalist, Harvey Thommasen has contributed his peerless knowledge and stream-wisdom about the Bella Coola's fauna and flora all the way through. The chronological following of the Aboriginal yearly cycle adds to the feel Hume creates.

But, and it is a big and, for me, distracting "but", there is a lot of preachiness even egotistical meanness in the way that Hume looks at those of less finer sensibilities who actually - sin of sins! - keep their catch. Only so much of this holier-than-thou proselytization and one loses the lyricism!

Hume's accounts of his own flyfishing prowess, catching a big salmon almost every cast and of course, because he is so ecologically enlightened, letting it go rather than frying it up like you or I might do, gets really tiresome. Not very far beneath the surface respect for the Nuxalk Indians whose lore gives the book its structure, runs a vein of intolerance for the tribe and for others who do not share his quasi-religous awe for steelhead etc.

So? By all means buy it but unless you are yourself one of those saintly fly-casters be prepared to grit your teeth more than a few times!